ARTDOT 60 Slot Storage Box: A Craft Table Story

The spill happened on a Tuesday, which is the night I sort drills for a new canvas. I had two greens in ziplock bags on the folding table by the north window, and I set one down too close to the edge. Both bags went over. Two greens that look identical under a ceiling light rolled across the rug, and I spent the rest of the evening on my knees with a tray, sorting them by hand. Ray came in, looked at me, and said nothing, which was worse than if he had said something.

Before that night my drill storage was a shoebox of ziplock bags. The bags split at the corners. The marker I wrote color codes with rubbed off until I was guessing between three shades of blue. And every new kit started with twenty minutes of digging. About eighteen months ago I bought the ARTDOT 60 Slot Storage Box, and it is the least interesting purchase I have made for this hobby and the one that changed my evenings the most.

Here is what it actually is. Sixty small containers sitting in a foam base, which is what keeps them from knocking into each other when the case moves. Closed, the ARTDOT case measures 11.61 by 7.68 by 2.95 inches, so it fits beside me on the folding table without taking over. The case itself is EVA and foam, and the containers are plastic. Each container holds about 10 grams, which the listing puts at roughly 2,000 drills. That is more than enough for a single color in any kit I have worked.

The box also comes with a set of tools: four pens with 3, 6 and 9 drill placers, 64 labels, a foldable silicone funnel and a brush. The funnel is the piece I did not expect to use and now use constantly. When a kit is finished and I want the leftovers back in the container instead of scattered across the tray, I fold the funnel into the mouth of the bottle and pour. The labels mean the color code stays on the container instead of rubbing off a bag.

None of this is dramatic. It is a box that holds bottles. But here is the part that matters to me: I sort each new kit into the ARTDOT containers before I place a single drill, and then I work from them for weeks. The first hour of a project used to be the worst hour. Now it is the part I do not think about at all.

Eighteen months in, I have not lost a drill to the rug. I could not say that about a single ziplock bag I ever owned.

I want to be honest about what it does not do. It does not sort for you. You still open each little bag from a kit and tip drills into a container, and with a kit that carries a lot of colors that is a sitting-down job. Sixty slots are generous, but I have seen kits with more colors than that, and those need a second case or a plan for the overflow. If you buy it expecting the box to do the tedious part, you will be disappointed.

It also takes up real estate. On my folding table it lives at the back left corner and stays there, open, for the length of a project. When I need the whole table it closes and goes on the shelf. The foam holds the containers in place when the case moves, which is the reason I can carry it out to the kitchen table when a canvas is too big for the craft corner.

The pens that come with it are fine, and the placers are useful if you like a multi-placer for big blocks of one color. I still reach for my Praise V Do pen because the grip suits my right thumb better, and that is a personal thing rather than a knock on the ARTDOT pens. The tools are a bonus, not the reason to buy.

What I did not expect was how the box changed the way I start. Sorting a new kit used to be a chore I put off, so drills sat in bags on the shelf and the canvas sat rolled up. Now I sort on a Tuesday night with something on the radio, and by the end of the evening the project is ready to work. That is a small thing. Small things are most of what makes this hobby pleasant.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

Here is what I would tell you if you were at my kitchen table with a shoebox of bags in front of you. Buy the box before you buy another kit. The kits will keep coming and the bags will keep splitting, and the spill is not a matter of if. I got lucky that mine was two greens and not a whole tray of one shade. Plenty of people sort on a tray and never have a problem, and if that is you, you do not need this. But if you have ever been on your knees with a tray, you already know what you are going to do.

The other thing I would say is to label as you go. The 64 labels exist for a reason, and the reason is that you will not remember which bottle is which in six weeks, no matter how sure you are now. I write the code and the kit name on mine. Ray thinks this is funny. Ray also once asked me to label the freezer shelves, so he can keep his opinions.

And keep the funnel in the case, not in a drawer. If it lives in a drawer you will not use it, and then you will be pouring drills over the bin and losing a dozen every time. That is not a storage problem. That is a funnel-in-a-drawer problem.